A Tale of Two Cakes

Actually, it's more than 2 cakes, but that's the classic line isn't it.

I was thinking about this the other day as I made Tigger's birthday cake.

I made it from scratch out of organic and fair things. It was a chocolate cake, with granche icing, and pink frosting rosettes. .

Each stage wasn't that bad, but the whole thing took me all day, on and off and several bowels to wash. 15-20 to mix, 15 minutes to construct the pan -- they don't make funky shaped pans in exactly the shape I wanted --, 45 to cook, 2 hours to cool, 10 minutes for granche, 10 to cover, 1 hour to cool, 5 minutes to make frosting, 15 minutes to pipe out rosettes.

The cost for this really delicious cake made of grass-fed butter, fair trade cocoa and sugar, and organic flour was not that high: butter is $4 a lb, flour, sugar, and oil, etc. about $2, cream $1, chocolate $5.50 a bag. So about $13-15 at most, inc electricity.

(That fair trade choc is a killer price wise, but child slave labor is such a downer.)

However if I'd gone all box mix, what would I have saved? For Generic choch full-o-polysyllabic thingys and non-organic, non fair-trade stuff? I'd have saved $5, and some time. $5 is a lot if you do it everyday, but right now I make under 10 cakes a year, between parties, birthdays, special events, etc. That's half a dozen fun Starbucks' Coffee Creations. If I went a bit more upmarket to Cherrybrook farms, it would cost me about the same amount of time as a box mix and costs abut the same as my home made cake, except non-fair trade.

Box mix, (add $2 for home ingredients.) frosting out a can, packaged decorations:

Betty Crocker, $2+2, $2 and $3 = $9

Cherrybrook farms or Pamela's $5+2, $3, $3 = $13

For both the time is 10 minutes to mix, 45 to bake, 2 hours to cool, 10 minutes to frost and five minutes to smack on pre-bought decorations out of the packet. That works out to about 3 hours and 15 minutes. I mean the BettyCrocker kind, not the beauteous sugar gum paste things from Cake Art, which cost $10-15.

Or I could save my time and energy and *buy* a cake.

You can get a Publix Cake for $25-35. (Generic grocery cake with industrial ingredients)

Or a really delicious cake from Fancy Top Notch French Bakery, all real good ingredients(butter and flour and cocoa, etc), but not organic or fair trade. $42 An extra $10 there. Or about a dollar a slice. Still,if you are going to eat cake shouldn't it *taste* like cake?

Time for Publix, that would be 15-20 minutes inc driving

For Fancy Top Notch French Bakery 30-40 minutes driving.

So for buying I trade lots of money for a time savings of around a 2 and half hours. But is that two and a half hours worth it? I value my time at $25/hour. So yeah. Buying it "saves" me 64 bucks of my time over the cake box. And I don't want to figure out how much over the special cake.

So clearly the best bargin for delux birthday type cakes is actually the fancy French bakery cake. But the fair trade thing niggles at my conscience. Plus they don't make cakes in special shapes: just round or square. (Of course, for basic cakes, I can manage to make the mix in 10 minutes, bake for 45, and ice in under 15. I just rarely make basic cakes. And my ingredient costs are well under $10.)

Why the Repubicans hate the French

Recently Conservative Republicans have been going on the morning talk shows proudly announcing that we were all about to become French.

At least, I thought they were proudly announcing it, because *I* was personally very excited. My husband had to break the news to me, that they were warning us. And indeed, as I watched futher, I did notice they were all in a pother.

So what exactly would be so bad about suddenly becoming French? Other than the whole complexity of verbs, plus having to remember which gender a lamp post happens to be.
You get great food and great wine. I admit those could be a down side for the Baptists who don’t drink. But there is still the food, so it can’t be that. What about scandal free mistresses? You’d think Republicans would love that. They keep getting caught with persons not their wives. National Health and high quality free day care? Surely no body could object to caring for the sick -- especially not a nation that considers itself so Christian, ‘cause Christ was really big on caring for the sick and children. Besides, you’d have to be really pretty callous to say “sure you have diabetes, or cancer and there are meds for that, but you’re poor, so you can just die.” And I have a hard time believing Republicans are evil. So not that. Nuclear Power? Nope, pretty sure the RNC has been pushing for that. High-speed Rail? Who gets worked up in an angry way about trains? Sure the average 3 year old is train mad, but nobody is mad because of trains.

What’s left really? The image of the French man as a considerate lover. I think it really has to be that don’t you? Think about it. The Republicans are always getting so worked up about sex. Gay sex, Fun sex, Kinky sex, extramarital sex, bathroom sex. Sex is pretty much front and center of their world view. So small wonder if the reason turns out to be because they are so bad or insecure about it. Let me give you examples A, B, and M. To whit, Ann Coulter, Bay Buchanan, and Mary Matalin. I think it’s fair to say these women are the leading conservative female public figures: Women who espouse traditional marriage. They are deeply committed to their ideologies. So how have they done in the “get a nice conservative boy” sweepstakes? Ann is 45 and never been married, and since she doesn’t believe in premarital sex, probably never been laid. Bay, has been married, but….. divorced. So apparently conservative guys, not worth marring, and if you do, not worth staying with. But what about Mary you ask? She’s married, has been married to the same guy for the last 16 years, nice family, clearly happy and satisfied. The only catch is, she had to marry a Democrat. Yup. Apparently the only kind of guy who could keep an intelligent, hard charging Republican woman happy -- is not a Republican.

So no wonder the conservatives are terrified American will turn into France, they are already underperforming in the considerate lover sweepstakes, and this will only make things harder for them. Though probably not the right things.

Everything you need to know about the French

Pizza vans will tell you everything you need to know about the French, especially in contrast to Americans.

When you think of pizza and van in the same sentence I bet you imagine some teenage guy driving up to your door in a beat up van. For a few bucks he will hand over a lukewarm dampish doughy concoction with loads of everything, except taste. In France, they have taken that same van and cut the middle of it out. Why? So they could install a proper wood fired brick oven. The vans look very peculiar with their protruding heavily wrapped middles, a bit like Sumo wrestlers crawling around on all fours. The reason for this is that to taste really good, pizza needs to come out of an 800 degree oven within the last 4 minutes, and not be in an enclosed space (like a cardboard box) which will cause the steam to condense and fall back, soggifying the pizza. That, that is commitment: The idea that you need to have portable brick ovens to bring the correct pizza cooking stuff to you, because the idea of a second rate but more convenient pizza is unacceptable.

So there you have it, a nation of people willing to do what ever it takes -- including a casual disregard for the principles of engineering and structural dynamics, judging by the looks of some of these vans -- to get a good meal. Where as Americans, will do what ever it takes -- including flaccid crust and faux cheese goop -- to get a cheap convenient meal.

It is a question of priorities. What part of the expeience of eating matters to you? Is is quantity? Is it taste? Does mounds of melting cheese signify delicious gooyness, or slimy excess? Would you rather have so more experience per bite, or experience more bites?

Of course, judging by the shows on HGTV, this delimma will soon be a thing of the past, with home brick ovens coming into fashion. Now there is the ultimate experssion of modern Americanism -- consume, consume, comsume.